More than a dozen civilians, mostly women and children, have lost their lives when the US-led coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group shelled residential areas in Syria’s embattled eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.

Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency that the shells slammed into buildings in Albu Badran village on Thursday, leaving 17 people of the same family dead, presstv.ir reported.

Most of the slain had been displaced earlier from the nearby town of al-Baghuz in the Abu Kamal district of Dayr al-Zawr province. The town has recently witnessed fierce clashes between Daesh terrorists and militants from the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

US-led jets also launched a cluster bomb raid on the eastern town of al-Shaafah town in the same Syrian district.

There were no immediate reports about possible casualties or the extent of damage caused.

Cluster bombs are banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty that addresses humanitarian consequences and unacceptable harm caused to civilians by cluster munitions through a categorical prohibition and a framework for action.

On Tuesday, the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the recent airstrike by the US-led coalition against al-Sharifah, which left more than 60 people dead and injured, arguing that the massacre clearly pointed to the fact that members of the military alliance had no respect for moral values, international rules, and regulations besides the lives of innocent civilians.

The ministry, in two separate letters, addressed to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the rotating president of the UN Security Council Ma Zhaoxu, called on the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities and stop US-led aerial assaults.

It also asked the world body to propose an international, independent and impartial mechanism to investigate the crimes being perpetrated by the US-led coalition.

The letters noted that the coalition was deliberately targeting Syria civilians and making use of internationally banned weapons, including white phosphorus bombs, in Syria.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry stressed that US-led coalition airstrikes were meant to kill as many Syrian people as possible, prolong the ongoing Syrian conflict, destroy the country’s infrastructure and undermine its sovereignty and territorial integrity in flagrant violation of all UN Security Council resolutions on Syria.

The letters concluded that the embarrassing silence of the Security Council had encouraged the US-led coalition to kill more Syrian civilians and destroy their property.

The US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes against what are said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of achieving its declared goal of destroying Daesh.